Loosed in Translation discussion

So I'm thinking of sometime this year taking on the entirety of the Divine Comedy. Anybody have suggestions as to the best/favorite/respected/readable/reputable translations? Thanks!

I read a translation years ago but I'd be interested in reading Robert Pinsky's translation...anyone else have thoughts?

I've not read Divine Comedy yet, and I don't mean to hijack this thread, but this is kind of related...

Mary Jo Bang has just translated Dante's Inferno (Graywolf Press) and stirred up some controversy. Her translation uses a lot of colloquial and even pop cultural jargon. See this article: http://quarterlyconversation.com/dant...

oh I love controversy... I'll take a look.

well I've so far only skimmed the article but I come down on the side of the 'purists'--as the author writes:

"Dante is not transcribing a folk ballad or an oral tradition. The Inferno is not a meme; it’s a long and incredibly complex poem conceived and crafted over the course of years by one man. It isn’t passed down through the generations, it’s read by them.”

so Bang's version of Dante's Inferno should not be called a translation, but something else, a transformation of sorts--

Yeah, I side with the purists too, for all the reasons you and the article mentioned.

By the way, I may have exaggerated when I said "controversy". I just wanted to get you excited ;)

hey, it worked! ;-)


and it does qualify as a very literary controversy--

Yes, in my dream world, where literature actually matters, people all over the world are skipping work and going to public libraries to have sit-in protests of this, governments grind to a halt, and the world's literary starlings hold televised press conferences to address where they stand on this issue.

ha! yes, bring it on.

Tim Parks seems to favor the Hollander translation:

With any translation of the Inferno, one can quibble ad infinitum, if only because the original just cannot be pinned down. But the Hollanders’ translation is a welcome addition, and, when one comes to all these versions fresh from a rereading of the original, it seems the most accessible and the closest to the Italian.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001...